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Social housing provider Andium has announced plans to double its new homes target amid fears of a growing “housing crisis” on the island, but given itself an extra five years to hit it.
Back in 2016, the States-backed provider pledged 1,000 new homes would be built by 2020.
Now officials have told Express that a new target has been set: 2,000 new homes by 2025 – 1,000 of which will be aimed at first-time buyers.
“2,000 by 2025 is a new delivery target from now till 2025, so it’s another 1,000 homes on top of what we are already committed to. This will be fully covered in our revised Strategic Business Plan 2018 – 2022 which will be released in November,” a spokesperson said.
Pictured: Andium Homes is planning to build 253 homes on the Jersey Gas Works site.
The revelation came as Andium, which last year paid the States a return of £28.2million, released its Annual Report for 2017, which detailed a strong demand from new buyers.
Over 1,000 applicants are currently registered to purchase a home on the Affordable Housing Gateway, which Andium said has prompted them to put "more emphasis on home ownership in our future plans."
"We plan to deliver 1,000 affordable purchase opportunities by 2025, 300 of these will come from our existing portfolio with 700 homes planned for new developments. We will have 40 homes to sell on the Samares development. We are in early discussions with two other Parishes and hope these will also deliver affordable first time buyer homes,” they added.
Nonetheless, the former Planning Minister’s refusal to allow 65 homes to be built in the green zone in St. Peter was described as a setback.
Pictured: Andium Homes planned to build 65 homes in St. Peter.
Andium said that the decision was disappointing, particularly because the Minister had argued there was “insufficient demand for such homes”, despite the large number of applicants on their affordable housing waiting list.
"The volume of people attending our Homebuy event, as well as the surge in registration when schemes are advertised, indicates that the demand for Affordable Purchase is far in excess of 1,000 applicants. We hope that the land in St Peters is ultimately rezoned in order that we can provide the much needed new homes on that site," the report read.
The report also expressed a keenness to upgrade the safety and quality of their 4,500 homes, with £12.5million being invested overall.
Among those upgrades was the installation of an “appropriate sprinkler system” at Covent Court, which will be rolled out across all high-rise buildings in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Pictured: Andium Homes high rise buildings will soon all have a new sprinkler system.
Chief Executive Ian Gallichan commented: "The tragic events at Grenfell Tower in the UK, a vision which will no doubt stick in our minds forever, saw us respond immediately to not only reassure our residents but also to check and double check that our homes were safe.
"We have carried out those checks and our homes are safe, but we chose to go beyond what was needed by committing to install sprinkler systems across our high rise blocks."
The latest update from the States social housing provider comes amid fears from islanders and politicians over an island-wide "housing crisis", which has led to high rents and property prices, and many Jersey people being placed under 'rental stress'.
New Housing Minister Senator Sam Mézec has previously stated his commitment to tackle this. Soon, he will issue an official response to a petition calling for more control of private rents.
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